His attire and physical features suggest 50-year-old R. Shankaraiah, is a typical marginal farmer. But this illiterate, poor and ordinary ryot from Chapchedu village of Medak district waged an unrelenting war for over 10 years against a corrupt government official and got him convicted.
When a group of Non-Resident Indians felicitated him, along with several others for fighting corruption, on Saturday at Ravindra Bharathi, Shankaraiah wept remembering his lonely fight against the corrupt system.
Relying on the three acres of land inherited from his father, Shankaraiah was pulling on life when 10 years ago suddenly the village authorities told him the land did not belong to him and was transferred in somebody's name. Shankaraiah approached the Revenue Inspector of Record of Rights but the latter said he was helpless.
“I showed my registered documents and land documents but neither the revenue officials nor the police bothered to listen,” he recalled. For months together, he went around from one official to the other but all of them said they could do little while the Revenue Inspector demanded thousands of rupees bribe. He fell on the feet of the RI handing over whatever few thousands he had saved earlier.
The RI was still not satisfied and wanted more money. That was when the illiterate farmer approached Anti-Corruption Bureau officials. A trap was laid and the RI was caught red-handed accepting Rs. 10,000 bribe. The farmer believed it would end his woes but the real battle began then and continued for the next 10 years attending the court, deposing evidence.
More than the court work, it was lures and pressures from the Revenue Inspector that gave him sleepless nights. The RI offered Rs.one lakh to turn hostile in court. But, he stuck to his statement. How do you perceive this long battle? “I got worried that I would be made scapegoat by the higher-ups but eventually the records were set straight. But, I lost precious time of 10 years in my life because of the official's greed,” he said.
Keywords: marginal farmer, corrupt government
